"Computers are stupid. They are only as smart as the user using them, or the programmer telling them what to do." - Andrea Scharnhorst.

I wish I could have recorded this lecture.

I have never found physics or biometrics to be interesting before - I mean, I could see how they were valuable fields as a whole, but I have never found them personally interesting - but Andrea Scharnhorst is phenomenal. She is a researcher who started as a physicist and is now thinking about other things, but SHE IS FANTASTIC.

She mentioned Bruno LaTour, whom Joe Tennis was a huge fan of in 530, which makes me think I really need to read more of him. And also Paul Otliet, Bradford's Law of Scattering, Derek de Solla Price, Milgram, and Lotka. Wow, I've got a lot of reading to do.

She talked about indicators, impact factors, number differentials, bibliometric evaluation, and I was hooked. I wish all my math teachers had been as interesting, I might have chosen a different field.

And also, she mentioned that story in Matthew where there's three guys who each get some money, and two bury it and don't do anything, and one uses it and gets more, and how if you start out with something you should use it.

Mostly she went a variety of places, but asked lots and lots of really great questions I am still pondering and probably won't have answers to for a long time.

But I really loved this broad sweeping overview of how things are connected to each other in helping us think about how knowledge emerges, how we evaluate it, and how science helps in that process.

places in the heart

"Man has places in the heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering in order that they may have existence." - Leon Bloy



Let's be honest, this is a fun trip, not one full of suffering. I am learning a lot and having a good time. But this morning I woke up and felt a little off. Sort of like that sign that means no people. (we think it means no people, but are unsure because there are no words. Although we wouldn't know what it meant anyway if there were words, because they'd be in Dutch. But that sign is what I felt like wearing when I woke up.) And then I read an e-mail from k8 and just wanted to call her, but couldn't because I am not using a phone here and it was not a good time for her to skype, considering it was 3 in the morning her time. And I really missed my friends. Everyone on the trip is pretty great, I really like them. I think if Maren and I don't kill each other in the next three weeks, we'll be bonded for life and able to go just about anywhere together. (Sharing a closet and sharing a bathroom with tourists across the hall who don't know how to flush the toilet or put the lid down are both really good team-building endeavors, just in case you need some good team-building challenges.)

But there's a difference in people you like and have known for ten minutes and people you like and have known for ten years. And know you back.

And then on the way to Coolhaven Metro station I saw a puppy, a little golden ball of fluff I wanted to pick up, and then I found myself telling Scott all about Wallace. How every morning we'd wake up and go out and walk. And how he waited for me at the door. And it made me want to cry, I missed him so much. I still do. It's really odd, because he died in July. Okay, so maybe it's not so odd that I'm still sad. But I spent the first two weeks of July mostly in a state of profound detachment from most of what was going on, crying at inopportune moments like staff meetings.

For a dog.

I am that girl.

So today I was sad in Rotterdam. I missed my friends and my dog and I would also like to let everyone know that I will never take a bathroom for granted again. Just so we're clear.

But we'll be at the Hotel Baan in Rotterdam until September 17th, and if anyone wants to send me a postcard, I would thank you from the bottom of my heart. And perhaps love you a little more. And I'm not above resorting to bribery - if I get a postcard here, I cross my heart I'll bring you something back from the Rotterdam Flea Market.

The address is:

G.B.
Hotel Baan
Room 8
Rochussenstraat 345
3023 DH Rotterdam
Netherlands

Monday, Monday

Today-was-laundry-and-nap-after-class-day, and it was great. I did wait in a very very very long line at the train station only to find I was in the wrong line and I didn’t want to wait in the right one, but some days are like that.

Also, these chairs are all over the city. I want to find out why.

communion sunday

Molly and I had communion today (it is Sunday after all*) in the form of a shared Heineken at the Oude Sluis, which I would like for you all to know is the 15th best place in Europe. According to their absolutely unbiased website, of course. But it was pretty damn cool.

And I do foresee many nights spent here in the next three weeks - good beer, a big table for all of us and a deck overlooking the water and the old part of Rotterdam, Delfshaven. Delfshaven was the only part of Rotterdam not bombed to pieces during WWII, so it still has old brick buildings and rabbit-warren streets. The rest of Rotterdam still has rabbit-warren streets, but a lot of modern construction incongruously set down on the old cobblestone streets.

We went to the Oude Sluis (pronounced Otis Laos) after a warm welcome from the owners of the Hotel Baan, where we will be staying the next couple weeks. Jan and Gabriella made us hor d'oeuvres of all kinds, and poured us pink champagne in flute glasses with sparkler-like straws. (The straws had rings of tinsel-like material around them.) It was delightful.


*For those who are super strict about such things, I'd just like to point out that Jesus' first miracle was turning water into wine, and if it had been beer they'd run out of, I'd like to think he'd have turned it into beer. Particularly good Dutch beer.

my feet turn the corner back home / sun turns the evening to rose - the weepies

I've had the Weepies in my head all along in Amsterdam. Mostly songs from Deb Talan's solo album, A Bird Flies Out, but also Can't Go Back Now...and others...They just seem to fit this city. Although I've mostly actually heard loud American pop playing in cafes, hotels, etc. You know, a little Pink at the flea market can be nice. Also, they really like George Michael.

But in the lovely green of the Botanical Gardens, the Weepies are a great internal soundtrack.

This might have been my favorite destination so far. I walked in and it smelled SO GOOD. Butterflies in the greenhouse, a South African greenhouse with a walkway above all the plants, plentiful benches, some palm trees, not very many people, and a lovely cafe. At which I ate the best salad ever: greens with avocado, cucumbers, green peppers, asparagus, and green beans. YUM.

I spent a lot of time here writing postcards and thinking about all this beauty around me.

I stayed til they closed, and when I walked out, there was a wedding party having a reception at the cafe. I wondered if red was a popular color for weddings, or if the bride just told people to wear red, because the whole group of lovely tall handsome Dutch people were arrayed in tuxedos with red bow ties, or in a gray suit with a red flower in the lapel, or a black and white strapless dress with a red ribbon as a belt. And a little girl with a bright red rose in her hair. It was absolutely beautiful, and I couldn't take a picture because my camera battery was dead. But I hope you can imagine it - this lovely group in front of the cafe, drinking cocktails in front of the sun reflecting on the canal.

It was a nice way to end our week in Amsterdam.

better than trophy cupcakes or cupcake royale

is this purse, found at the Museum of Bags and Purses, in this lovely little underground house entrance. For the record, I wouldn't carry it around, but it was pretty cool. Who wouldn't want a cupcake purse with Svaroski crystals?

the Dutch masters

I didn't understand why the Dutch masters were so cool, especially after seeing Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson at the History Museum. It kind of grossed me out.

But then I went to the Rijksmuseum, and was blown away - the interplay between light and dark in Vermeer and Rembrandt was simply breathtaking. And all those other words that are super cliche, but also true.

You should check out this video from the Rijks. It's not as cool as being there, but it's still pretty awesome.

This painting is my favorite.

3 museums and a funeral

There is no funeral. Well, I'm sure there was one somewhere in the world today, but I didn't go to it. Thank God. I think after all the funerals I've been to over the past year, I'd like a break. No death. For a while. Please.

We did wake up to rain this morning, scads and scads of it. Torrential downpour-style. I-don't-want-to-get-out-of-bed-but-my-canal-trip-ticket-is-already-paid-for sort of rain.

I did get out of bed, and I did go on a canal tour which was lovely even with the rain. Then I got Mom some fabric at the Albert Cuypr market and bought myself some boots - practical souvenir, people - and then went off to 3 museums.

The Hermitage is an amazing place. For two reasons:

1) It showcases collections from the St. Petersburg Hermitage. This is a pretty cool relationship.

2) There was a lovely, lovely, lovely Matisse to Malevich exhibition and I saw Picasso, Mattise, Kadinsky's compositions - Whoa. I never liked Kandinsky's composition no 5 before, but I LOVED it in the museum. It was alive on the wall.

The Amsterdam History Museum is also amazing, mostly for the map that shows the growth of Amsterdam's population over time, since about 320 ish. I personally did not understand the fuss about Rembrandt's anatomy lesson paintings, which kind of grossed me out, especially the one with a brain opening. But I suppose I can see why they were important for the time.

And finally, the New Church. It's 600 years old. Mostly I was tired at this point and really wanted to sit down in a holy place and just think for a bit. Of course, I entered the New Church to find that there is renovation going on, and not really a space to sit. But the stained glass windows were amazing, and I sat on the stairs by the altar and thought for a while. And it was good.

the library that surpasses all other libraries

This is a quiet reading area. Note the sign.


This is the amazing reader board of information awesomeness.


You can try the CD before you check it out. Just like Barnes and Noble.


The extensive media collection.


Shelves in the kids' section.


The central library is phenomenal. The space is so purposefully designed to invite people in and still give them lots of space. Here's some pictures. Because they just should show you how cool it is.

Highlights:

• Electronic reader boards that give lots of info
• 1,400 chairs
• Tons and tons and tons of free computer access - you don't have to log in with a library card
• Art exhibits mixed in with the collection
• Lighted bookshelves make the books sparkle
• Adorable genre stickers on the books
• Children's area with books, computers, seats, desks, art by kids and adults, and a big polar bear
• Purposeful use of space!
• Reference librarians
• Every staff member wore a super cool vest that said Openbare Bibliotheek, or they wore a bright red t-shirt that said "I love reading."
  
• Space to quietly work all over - there's desks, computers at hidden desks, and big work tables, also study tables and couches. And lots of comfy, comfy seats.

"If we don't innovate, we will become obsolete." - Dr. Roeland Ordelman

First of all, the Dutch love color. The archive we visited today is BRIGHT ORANGE, and then royal blue. The building is amazing, it's built into the ground and has drainage pipes in case there's a flood, and a pond outside in case there's a fire that uses recycled water from the toilets, and every single thing about the building is so damn purposeful it's amazing.

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision has an archive of all Dutch broadcasting. So if anyone ever needs a clip from Dutch radio, they are the place to go, with a very nice customer service center who will probably smile and meet the need you have promptly. They also have a super cool experiential component, and somewhere on the Internet is a video of me, Scott, Jonathan, and Maggie all riding the same bike. Perhaps I will post it when Jonathan e-mails it.

Also, there's a pretty great cafeteria, at which we talked about our childhood experiences with eating meat. A surprising number at our table grew up raising chickens and hating them.

And the best part was a lecture from Dr. O, who was absolutely superb in talking about using social tagging to serve user groups better, and also very easy on the eyes. I swear, this country is full of tall handsome people. I should really learn Dutch.

Holocaust Day

People talk about "the War" here a lot, and they're usually referring to World War II. The legacy of that war remains strong.

I went to the Dutch Resistance Museum after lunch, and walked into an exhibit full of stories. About men and women who resisted the Nazis and most often were killed. I hadn't realized how total the German occupation was. I mean, I knew that occupation means occupation, but I didn't realize. Nor did I realize that Dutch men were rounded up and sent to Germany to work.

There was a chilling map of Amsterdam with dots on it, representing 10 Jews each. Of the 130,000 Jews living in Amsterdam in 1940, by the end of the war, 100,000 had died.

As I read about those who resisted the occupation, I cried. I wished my Grandfather was with me, so I could tell him I thought he did good by serving in the War, and that while I wish I lived in a world in which war was not necessary, it seems sometimes that war is the only thing that will stop horrible suffering and death.

After the DRM, I went back to the Bicycle and met up with classmates to head over to the Anne Frank Huis. I cried here too, mostly because of how in Nancy Pearl's class she told of one of her friends who re-reads Diary of Anne Frank every so often, because every time, she hopes the ending will be different.

Walking through the house, you get to see pages of Anne's diary. She writes like any other kid, with doodles and pictures interspersed among stories and daily thoughts. She posted a picture of Greta Garbo on her wall, and hated the blackout curtains they had to use all the time.

She couldn't ever go outside. They still don't know who turned them in. Not that it matters, I suppose. It wouldn't change what happened.

I think that quotation from Anne's dad Otto is a pretty good one to think about.

e-research: scope and implications

the Virtual knowledge studios is AWESOME, and Paul Wouters was really amazing to hear from - he talked to us about how e-search is working at the moment and various approaches social scientists have in viewing technology....covering things like how we are currently swimming in data and have less of a need for models. Also the shift from a scientific method sort of approach, and five areas of research that are emerging at VKS:

• from data scarcity to data flooding: new methods in data analysis
• computational modeling: for those who hate math/science, new solutions for this
• visual culture: "Can you see what I know?"
• telling stories in new media: new formats of communication, publication, and representation
• social neuroscience: pairing brain study with social dimension/behaviors

OMG. Such good stuff to think about. And then he even ate lunch with us and shared more of what he's working on.

I really think great people are those who are welcoming and listeners and want to be fully alive, and Paul Wouters is definitely one of those.

And also, he mentioned at the end that there were more women working at VKS than men, and not to believe anybody who told us that you have to lower quality of work to fill certain spots, because it's not true. And this made me like him more, of course.

"I'm giving it to you, it's a gift." - Molly

Molly Riley is pretty cool. She loves riding bikes, and gets up early to ride them in Amsterdam. Also, we were talking at the iball and happened to find out while talking that she was cousin to Charlie, and I had lived with Charlie's wife Myndi, and we had both been at their wedding and not known each other yet.

Such a small world, really. And I was trying to figure out what to call my blog before writing it, and we were talking about how much we wanted to blend in here, to be thought of as Dutch. And we both went to the grocery store and had people talk to us in Dutch, assuming we knew what they were saying.

So then Molly suggested I call the blog "Speaking in Dutch," even though we don't, because it can be about how we want to, and how we are learning about Dutch culture while we learn about researching.

"Postcards are my favorite form of communication" - Molly

It rained so hard this morning it woke me up. But it slowed enough to a drizzle that I went on a walk and got just a teeeeeeensy bit soaked. Also, Amsterdam is full of bikes. 40% of traffic is bicycle traffic. For real.

This was the church visiting day - Maren and I walked all over the place -as Grandpa would say, to heck and back - and somehow found a few gorgeous holy places.

First was Begijnhof, this amazingly peaceful courtyard surrounded by old apartment/rowhouses in the middle of a warren of tiny streets. The place was a non-convent, in which women who were not nuns (but it appears still sort of holy) lived and worked. It's still rented out to 93 women today.

Then we went to the Church in the Attic, which was phenomenal - it was illegal to practice Catholicism for a time, so a merchant built a church in the top two floors of his house. So you enter what appears to be a simple house, see a couple rooms, and then walk up a couple flights of stairs and -voila! - you're in a church! There's a ton of restoration work going on here, so we got to see a restoring artist flaking gold leaf onto the altar. Pretty sweet.

And on our way to Koffiehuis van den Volksbond, we stopped in at St. Nicolas Kerke, and marveled at the stained blue glass dome. Breathtaking.

And then group dinner at the koffiehuis was so, so good. Belgian chocolate to die for after grilled goat cheese salad and the best risotto I've ever eaten in my life. Yum. Yum. Yum. Yum.

"those boats are getting cooler" - Jonathan

Maren checked out the Iamsterdam site and discovered it was the end of Sail 2010, and there would be fireworks in the harbor. So we trekked over Sunday night to the harbor, and walked along and got to go on this super cool sailboat you see Jonathan pulling ropes on and Moritz laughing on. We walked and walked and stopped to hear some musicians sing pirate ballads, and Maren and Jonathan ate bratwurst, and then the ships all lit up their lights, and it was pretty gorgeous, felt kind of carnival-ly. And then we were tired, so we sat and waited for something to happen, and the fireworks started and ended spectacularly. They were glorious. After the show, the air was so full of smoke, it was still hard to see walking across a street four blocks away.

We got lost going back to Centraal Station, and took the long way around, but it was a good walk nonetheless.

Planes, Trains, and Irish Artists

Often I meet such bizarre people while traveling in moving vehicles that I am sometimes worried about traveling next to people who might be crazy.

But it didn't occur to me to be worried about the plane, until I actually got onto the plane and realized I was in a middle seat. But the guy sitting next to me appeared perfectly reasonable, and was very nice. He was an Irish artist studying in Vancouver, and he kept me laughing the whole time. Which is quite remarkable, really, considering it's about an 11 hour flight. Okay, maybe not really 11 hours, but it was quite long.

We sat in between two engineers going to Copenhagen to present about their plastics used for making wind turbines. Which according to these engineers, are the best in the world. One of them had a "World's Worst Cars" book, in which is documented the world's worst cars. He shared several of them with me. I also started and finished Ella Minnow Pea, which was quite delightful and should be read by you if you haven't done so already. I love epistolary novels, and ones that explore the use of language are especially nice. Also, Mark Dunn is hilarious. Good stuff.

And then we got to Amsterdam, and found the train platform and the train ticket machine, and the train ticket office when our cards wouldn't work in the machine because they're American, and finally got on the train to the city, and then a tram, and finally to a street near the hotel, on which we met an American expatriate who told us which direction to go, and finally we made it to the Bicycle Hotel.